


Four Words

by TheArchaeologist



Series: Empty Space [2]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Canonical Character Death, Connor Deserves Happiness, Depressed Hank Anderson, Drama, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Families of Choice, Family, Family Feels, Father-Son Relationship, Feels, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hank Anderson and Connor Live Together, Parent Hank Anderson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-27
Updated: 2019-01-27
Packaged: 2019-10-17 20:42:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17567618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheArchaeologist/pseuds/TheArchaeologist
Summary: It's the most wonderful time of the year. The tree is up and decorated, the office has thrown the annual party, and Connor stands awkwardly in the cemetery by the grave of a child who never knew he existed.





	Four Words

There was an unspoken weight in the Anderson household, one that was both suffocating and distressing, depending on the mood of the occupants.

For Lieutenant Hank Anderson that weight would often determine whether or not he decided to drink, which in turn dictated what kind of night (and then day, depending on the hangover) they would spend in the office. While Connor disliked Hank’s dependency of alcohol he was not so mean-spirited that he would remove the coping mechanism completely. After a few months, only a few of the ‘hidden’ bottles had vanished from the home. 

To his slight surprise Hank yet to realise his secret stash was gone, telling Connor that he hadn’t felt the need to reach for them behind his back. That got labelled away under progress, and a slow hope bloomed that this would naturally evolve to a positive conclusion.

Though, considering the time of year, those bottles may still be unburied, and the argument over where they went might still be had. Connor was not stupid, and the CyberLife technicians had been diligent in uploading anything and everything into his processor in case it became relevant to an investigation. Therefore, despite having never witnessed such an event, Connor was aware of Christmas, and, on a more relevant note, what it was supposed to be for Hank.

Losing a child was an unimaginable horror, and that loss was never more prominent than during a holiday.

Connor knew he would never replace Cole, and he never attempted to. It was not his place to force Hank to leave his little boy behind, to do so would be especially cruel and heartless. But that didn’t mean he should leave his friend in the depths of despair either. 

If he could try and channel that grief into something a bit less destructive, less suicidal, then he could leave the house with a touch more confidence. It would give him the ability to go into stasis with significantly reduced worries nagging at him, the fear that he will be awoken to the sound of gunfire and Sumo’s distressed barking weighing heavily on his shoulders.

Removing the depressant had been the first step, just to help bring Hank out of his cloud of grief long enough that he could gasp clean air. What step number two was going to be Connor was still deliberating, however what he _does_ know is that what he is currently doing would be a step too far.

That was why he had come alone.

Despite how often they were in each other’s company Connor was unsure how much time Hank devoted to coming to the cemetery. While on a few occasions Connor had mustered up the courage to ask something about Cole, the graveyard was never one of those topics. Bringing up the fact that his baby boy had died far too early was the very last thing Connor wanted to do to Hank.

But as far as he was aware Hank never visited, and at this time of year that just felt…Wrong.

It was a strange sensation, one that had caused Connor to spend the previous night sitting up in bed, processor whirling as he tried to place it. Normally he would go to Hank, but the thought of waking him to ask about his confused emotions about a deceased child he never knew left an odd, bitter taste in his mouth and a feeling he had come to know as nausea swirling among his biocomponents. 

Connor had never known Cole personally, but he had been designed as an investigative android, and living in the same space Cole once occupied gave Connor enough clues to piece together a little on the child.

In the box of books Hank had saved, the copy of _The Wind in the Willows_ had a worn earmarked page on the chapter where a character escapes prison.

When he took him for walks, Sumo would instinctively sit by the bench that faced the playground where mothers would often park their pushchairs. 

There was a tiny, tiny speck of blood a few feet off the ground on the corner of the doorway Connor now used as a bedroom, the perfect height for a three-year-old’s head.

Under the couch Connor moved when he was vacuuming, he found a small patch of playdoh melted into the carpet.  
The list continues, revealing hidden doodles under peeling wallpaper, small pieces of scribbled-on card wedged between the floorboards, and muddy action figures buried in the dirt of the garden. Once when he was weeding, he found a glittery pebble under the porch, the words ‘Best Dad’ painted on with a shaky hand.

Sometimes, when the house was quiet and Connor was alone, he wonders what Cole would have thought about him.

Hank never says anything on the topic. In fact, he’s very careful to keep his previous thoughts regarding androids to himself. While it’s no secret that he hated them after the accident, what he thought before the crash Connor does not know, and decisively does not _want_ to know. 

But children are malleable things, easily mimicking the words of their peers and constantly parroting what their parents tell them. If Hank had held a distaste for androids, then in all likelihood Cole had too, especially at six-years-old.

Would he have accepted Connor?

Would he have accepted Connor even _after_ all he had done, like Hank had? Would he have understood that it had been part of his programming, that the person he was before wasn’t really him? Would he have feared the prospect of sharing a house with him, horrified at the thought of Connor using his room? Would he have tried to convince Hank that he was dangerous, that they shouldn’t trust him, shouldn’t let him into their lives?

Connor had never been good with children.

“Good evening, Cole.”

He stands stiffly in front of the grave, eyes twitching back and forth from the headstone to the ground. In his hands the wreath feels heavy, the woven plants scraping uncomfortably against his palms. His tie squeezes his throat.

Before he came, Connor carried out some minor research on protocol at a graveside. Even to him that felt a bit contrived, unnatural, but the only other grave he had ever visited was his own and bringing up the subject with Hank wouldn’t have gone down well.

“I, uh…” 

Lifting the wreath, Connor stared dumbly at the bright red ribbon. It had been an impulse buy, something he spotted while shopping for gifts for the New Jericho leaders, but he had already known that he wanted to leave some kind of offering at Cole’s grave, even if he didn’t know what.

The wreath seemed like a good idea, both festive yet respectful. Connor wasn’t going to be arrogant and purchase something he suspected Cole would have liked, it would have been presumptuous, and unlikely appreciated. 

Then again, perhaps a wreath was leaning a bit too much towards the unemotional side, a cold gesture with empty meaning.

When Connor mentioned the decoration was for a grave at the checkout the lady in the shop had offered him a card to accompany it, however since then it has yet to leave his pocket.

Connor’s thumb carefully runs over the bumps of a pine cone. “I apologise if this is an unsatisfactory present, however I was not sure what else to get you. I…I hope you don’t mind.”

The grave is unsurprisingly silent, and in the horizon the sun slowly starts to dip into the earth. The twilight colours of purple and blue ink across the sky, bleeding like paint between heavy grey clouds that threaten snow and rain. Shifting between his feet, Connor eyes the ground.

“It appears the groundskeeper has not been available.” He comments dumbly, his social integration programmes struggling against an unresponsive headstone. “There is snow all over the, uh, the…”

He waves a hand to indicate the obvious patch before him, mouth opening and closing a few times before he finally gives up squats down, putting the wreath to one side. The snow registers cold against his fingers, wet moisture soaking into the sleeves of his coat as he scrapes it away into neat edges. The weather forecasts predict more to come in the following days, but this will at least make the grave presentable for a little while.

Connor places the wreath in the centre, adjusting the fir and holly so they rest evenly. 

He remains sat, squat on his toes, staring numbly at the decoration. If he was human he would likely be nibbling at this bottom lip or the inside of his cheek, but as an android he instead settles for tangling his fingers together on his knees, running his nails over his knuckles.

The wreath lays there, impersonal, detached. It says nothing for either Cole or Connor, ignoring both their personalities and betraying the life Cole once knew and the one Connor now knows.

A machine miming humanity.

Connor pushes his face into his hands.

He says nothing.

What is there _to_ say? He is an AI, a complex algorithm that mutated from its course and is now playing owning a soul. He knows nothing on this kind of pain, this kind of loss. He is months old, and years away from when Cole was in existence. They will never know each other, afterlife or not, yet here he is, talking to the ground as if it is his right to do so.

Standing, Connor stuffs his hands into his pockets, fingers reaching for his coin as his stress levels tick up. 

They find the card instead. 

Pulling it out, Connor blinks slowly at the stark white paper, the corner slightly bent from his movements. His fingers, still damp from clearing the grave, seep a wetness into the card as if the snow is morning the lack of human acknowledgment.

“I…”

The headstone, one among hundreds surrounding them, stands still.

His eyes squeezing shut, Connor breathes slowly, deeply. The cold air tickles his inner tubing, making his sensors shiver and biocomponents numb. 

Can you really grieve over someone you never knew? Was it fair that Connor was feeling this? Or was it a low blow towards Hank, a mockery of his genuine emotion that Connor thought it his place to feel that deep, shuddering wave of loss while he suffered the tragedy of his son’s death?

He should put something on the card. His gift was indifferent enough as it is, but to leave it without some form of message would make it even more so. 

Fishing out his pen from his inside coat pocket, the tip hovers centimetres about the card as he stares ahead, mind drawing a blank at what he should say. 

This is a Christmas wreath, one he is placing because he felt the need to give something at this time of year, but anything associated with the holiday would just come across as unfeeling, an empty sentiment. At the same time, to put that he misses Cole would be insensitive, not only to Hank but to Cole himself.

A search online brings up a barrage of generic phrases, none of them hitting any kind of emotional mark to warrant his time of day. 

Perhaps he should write something on behalf of Hank? Not _for_ Hank, and not _from_ Hank’s point of view, but maybe on behalf of the home Cole once lived in? Something that was just the general feeling of the occupants, the overall emotion that still connected them all to the child that lay below the ground.

Connor ends up writing down four words, in his usual CyberLife font that he cannot shake no matter how hard he tries.

He quickly places it at the bottom of the wreath, where it can be easily seen but unlikely to get blown away in the wind. Straightening up, he pockets his pen and steps back a pace, running a critical eye over the grave and his alterations.

His internal clock ticks off the hour, signalling the need to leave in order to get home so he can begin preparing dinner.

“I need to go now.” He informs the grave, Cole, because the idea of just turning and walking away feels deeply _wrong_ , “I need to cook Hank’s meal.” He deliberates for a moment. “Your dad’s dinner.”

He never knew Cole. This isn’t his place. All of this was a bad idea.

But the idea of the grave never being visited feels even worse, and _that_ was why he originally constructed this plan to begin with. Because he had promised himself to help Hank the same way Hank helped him, and if that included tending to his child’s patch of earth, then that is what he must do.

Connor will never, ever, know Cole.

But sometimes he wished to the heavens that he did.

“Goodnight, Cole.”

 

_Remembered forever, missed always._

**Author's Note:**

> Oh yeah hi apparently I’m making this into a series now


End file.
